Overnight, the political landscape of America’s largest city has been turned on its head.
For the Democratic establishment, waking up to the victory of Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist who defeated Andrew Cuomo in New York City’s mayoral primary on Tuesday, may be something of a shock.
It was also a vivid display of Democrats building power outside the traditional party establishment.
Mamdani, a Queens assemblyman, ran a welcoming campaign relentlessly focused on making the city more affordable for working- and middle-class people. He was cast by critics in the city’s establishment as too far left and without enough experience to be taken seriously. Voters felt differently. Tuesday night, Mamdani won not only in areas of the city like Brooklyn’s Park Slope known to be progressive strongholds. He also won in Harlem and in the Staten Island neighborhood of Port Richmond; in working-class areas of Queens like Ozone Park; he won even in some areas of the city with little progressive tradition to speak of, like Dyker Heights deep in south Brooklyn, in the Norwood area of the Bronx and way out in Jamaica Hills, near the Long Island border. “We have won because New Yorkers have stood up for a city they can afford,” Mamdani said. “A city where they can do more than just struggle.”
This coalition would once have been unthinkable. Mamdani appears to have built it by doing something too many Democrats in Washington seem to struggle with: telling voters what he believes and is willing to fight for, in as many venues as possible. He campaigned unapologetically on promises like freezing the rent for stabilized apartments and providing free buses and free child care. One turning point in the race, though, may have come when Mamdani, who is Muslim and of the left, and the city’s comptroller, Brad Lander, who is Jewish and of the city’s liberal base, struck a deal to endorse each other in the city’s ranked-choice primary. Other Democratic candidates followed.
It was a startlingly hopeful vision for Democratic voters, who are looking for reasons to hope.
Lander won upward of 11 percent of the first-choice primary vote; his endorsement of Mamdani will almost certainly help the assemblyman edge over the 50 percent threshold to victory in the final ranked-choice tally. Tuesday night, Lander, who had long hoped to be mayor himself, watched the returns with supporters at Atolye Venue & Bar, a club in an industrial area of Park Slope. When his campaign manager brought him the news of Mamdani’s victory, Lander shared it with those in the room, who broke out into cheers. Mamdani later gave his victory speech with Lander standing beside him, lifting his hand into the air. “I want to thank Brad Lander,” he said. “Together we have shown the power of the politics of the future.”
Mamdani also had a robust field operation that reached voters who had long been ignored or taken for granted by politicians like Cuomo. It was a victory that evoked the first win in 2018 of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she unseated Joe Crowley, who was then in the House Democratic leadership.
In the days before the primary, Mamdani and Lander campaigned together, at one point riding side by side on Citi Bikes in Brooklyn. The youthful energy of the rising coalition offered a stark contrast to Cuomo. In the days before the primary, a PAC supporting Cuomo flooded the city’s media landscape with grim attack ads about Mamdani.
Cuomo thought he could coast to victory on name recognition and TV ads. He lost even after startling sums of money were poured into the race on his behalf by big donors, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In recent days, Cuomo also received endorsements by former President Bill Clinton and James Clyburn, the South Carolina congressman.
Tuesday night, Democratic voters said they were ready to move on. That kind of coalition is there for the taking in many places for the politicians who recognize how to build it.
Mara Gay is a member of the editorial board. @MaraGay
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